AS 357TH COURT ELECTIONS NEARS; OLD SINS REMEMBERED

By Juan Montoya
After numerous readers commented to our post about the cozy relationship that Democratic Party nominee for the 357th District Court has had with the likes of  current Texas Democratic Party chairman Gilberto Hinojosa (former partner), convicted district judge Abel Limas (a $30,000 loan), we received a slew of other information we didn't know existed.
If you remember, the likes of Brownsville Independent School District board counsel Baltazar Salazar alleged that Limas had bent over backwards to make sure Magallanes received his due in the form of court-ordered payments even when a jury did not award him any damages or attorney's fees.
Salazar alleged that Limas issued orders that went against a jury decision that put $100,000s of dollars into Magallanes' pockets.
"This (the Magallanes $30,000 loan) came a few months after a Cameron County jury awarded Magallanes nothing, zero. Limas then on his own awarded Magallanes $195,000 in damages and $50,000 in attorney's fees..."
The case (2004-10-5058) was styled Bob Torres Properties vs. Southern Stone Properties, according to Salazar, who commented on Magallanes; opponent Oscar X. Garcia's FB page that "this was not a loan. This was a payback for ignoring a jury's verdict."
In fact, during the Ray Marchan trial, Limas testified that Magallanes loaned him the money in 2005, just after the case had closed.
That is only one case involving the Democratic nominee in 2004. It was not a good year for Juan. In fact, we were told that in January 19, he was charged with Driving While Intoxicated and that the accident resulted in hurting some of the occupants in the other car, including a girl and her mother.
Intrigued, we went to the Cameron County Courthouse's Judicial Wing and looked up Juan in the Odyssey computer and sure enough, there was the entire file on their memory banks.
(Click on graphics to enlarge.)
At that time, the Cameron County District Attorney was Yolanda De Leon, who was known to zealously prosecute defendants, especially where there was an accident involved and people hurt. However, there were a number of continuances on the part of the defendant and the state that allowed the case to remain unresolved for almost four years until Nov. 30, 2006.
By then, the DA had changed and Armando Villalobos authorized that Magallanes be given Pre-Trial Diversion and County Court-at-Law Judge Daniel Robles signed the order authorizing the dismissal after Magallanes completed the diversion process.
Looking at the docket entries and the files of potential witnesses to be called, it is obvious that the the initial Asst. D.A. assigned to the case (Karen F. Betancourt) had done her due diligence and had attached a witness list fore the planned trial that consisted of at least six police officers, four victims who were in the other car, two employees of the United Chiropractic Clinic, and almost a dozen doctors and health providers from the Brownsville Medical Center.
The case against Magallanes never got to trial because of Villalobos allowing him to participate in the PTD program. The court file does not indicate whether the families hurt in the accident received any damages or whether Magallanes had to serve a period of probation after he completed the PTD course.
A reader of this blog commented that the Magallanes-Limas-Robles relatiosnhip goes back much further than that. They reminded us that Magallanes, Robles, Hinojosa and Limas shared the law office on Boca Chica Blvd. in the mid-1980s. So in the following decades, their paths crossed again, once with Limas receiving personal favors and loans from Magallanes and Robles going along with Villalobos to have him compete a Pre-Trial Diversion program and then signing the order to dismiss the DWI charge.